8 Dec 2017

The Internet is full of advice for Lolita newbies. Heck, not
to shamelessly plug my own stuff, but I have written several posts with advice
aimed at newcomers, both here and on WunderWelt Libre. However, in the spirit
of trying to be positive and encouraging, most advice usually focuses on what to do – and yet sometimes what not to do is just as important. So here are five things that I would like to tell all Lolita
beginners not to do.

5 Dec 2017

This Saturday once again Lolitas
across the world have gathered, either physically at meet ups or metaphorically
online, to celebrate the Winter International Lolita Day. I hope that you have
been able to do something for the occasion, big or small, in group or alone,
for the full day or just a portion of it. I was lucky enough to be absolutely
swarmed with ILD meetup invites from across the various comms I am part of (and
beyond), but remained loyal to my local Leeds comm.

Selfie at the beginning of the day, when my hair was still
fresh. Although it held ok through the day.

The only closeup of some of my rings, when I was brainstorming
accessories the night before. Ended up not using the necklace.

Even though there was no official
theme, since this ends up being our Christmas meet too, I decided to be as
festive as I possibly could have and went with a toy soldier/nutcracker theme.
I wanted to wear this Baby dress because: a) it’s on the list of dresses to
wear before the end of the year; b) it has a fully shirred back, so great for
festive eating; and c) because its main accent colour is red which is a very
festive colour indeed. Very quickly I was able to pick the remaining matching
pieces, whipped up my favourite hairstyle and added some sparkle to the makeup
(which you sadly can’t see on the photo) and off I went!

On the day it turned out that plenty
of people had issues with public transport and many people were delayed. Luckily,
the venue, The Queens Hotel, is literally adjacent to the Leedss train station,
so very little walking in the cold involved and it really would be an
achievement to get lost looking for it. Everyone has had some kind of either
festive or winter theme in their outfits going on and I love seeing what other
people do for bigger occasions like this!

There were about 20 of us on the
day, which is about standard for meets like ILD, but at the same time it was
comfortable enough that you could chat to everyone, as well as meet new people.
The room was also laid out in a way that kept us together, making it easier to
socialise.

Very classy private room.

That fit us all comfortably and had a few good lighting spots!

While the main thing was standard
afternoon tea (albeit that chocolate mousse was the best chocolate mousse I ever had in my life!), our wonderful organiser added her own touch to
the event to make it more fun. At first, to make sure that we all felt
welcome and had a chance to get to know everyone, we had to stand up, introduce
ourselves and say how long it took us to get ready that morning. Most people
averaged somewhere in the region of two hours, although there were a few who
got ready in an hour or less (who got a round of applause) and a few people who
stretched it to longer (e.g. I said that I started curling my hair the night before,
so if we counted that, it’d be closer to twelvve hours). It’s such a great way to break the ice:
a simple question that everyone can relate to, but that’s also not the standard
“and talk about what you’re wearing” – something light that everyone can laugh
at or take seriously if they want to.

Compulsory food photo. That mousse though!

The second major thing was a
five-part quiz. I feel like I cheated by joining a team who really knew their
Lolita trivia, because some of the questions were absolute news to me. Each part
was its own little sub-category, like anagrams spelling out brand names
or “Lolita fuckery” meaning the weirdest, most obscure bits of trivia formed into
true-or-false questions. One part involved two of our comm members, who are
notorious for not knowing any print
names, not even the ones that they own, and each team had to get them to
guess the print name they had drawn out in an Articulate style game. There was no
point in explaining what the prints looked like, all we had to do was get our
randomly selected contestant to say the words in the print – and some people
got abstract! Although it was the joining words like “of” that were very
tricky to explain, we managed to get most simple print names down – only some
weird-ass Baby print with a sentence of a name and Vampire Requiem, which through the explainer’s invention turned
into Walrus Requiem, were genuinely
too difficult to get. And our lovely print-name-challenged comm members each
received a cute Christmas glass so that they wouldn’t feel too picked on. In
the end the team I was on and another team ended up in a draw, so we continued
with that game sudden death style – and sadly lost. But it was still loads of
fun. And our host actually made the quiz available online, so if you fancy giving it a go, you can find it here.

I had to take my jacket off, the quiz was intense and required
a lot of focus to explain print name words properly to score
us points. :P

And lastly were Secret Santa and
raffle. If you have read about Winter ILD 2016, then you will already be
familiar with our style of Secret Santa. For new readers, this is how it
worked. Everyone participating had brought a gift. The first person had to pick
a gift from the array and open it in front of everyone. Every person after that
could either pick a new gift and unwrap that OR steal a gift from those already
opened – and stealing had to be respected, no arguing or resisting. The person who had
their present stolen then got to pick and open a new one from those that were
left. And so on until all gifts were distributed. Last year I was lucky in that
no-one had even tried to steal mine. This year I was one of the last people to
draw and since I didn’t fancy stealing anything, I picked a new one – which turned
out to be Lush bath bombs that I was quite happy with. And then the very last
person came right up to me and took those away from me. But! That turned out to
be a blessing in disguise. The last remaining unopened present was actually
from my present stealer – a beautiful necklace that she had on preorder on her Etsy store page. And it matched my ILD coord so
perfectly that I simply had to put it on. I am far, far happier with that
necklace than I was with the bath bombs, so I’m grateful for fate looking after
me like this! (Psst, there are still some available and cheap too, get youself one, support indie brands!)

So many mysterious gifts...!

...and the best one ended up mine!

As for the raffle, there were quite
a few interesting prizes, including a very WTF pink canotier with a panda head
on it. (By the way, I know that there was a panda print from Taobao not that
long ago, but I feel like it does come in pink, so I hope that the two will
meet one day.) The grand prize was this beautifully displayed Baby JSK, which I
have just managed to find out is the Starry
Sky of Mother Goose print. Unfortunately, very few of us in attendance
stood a chance of fitting it thanks to a complete lack of shirring, and the
person who ended up snagging it won’t fit it either, so I hope that they manage
to find something to do with it. I modestly came home with a brown velveteen
headbow from Cutie Creator – the same one I already own in green that I wore to
the Christmas Markets in Manchester. Never too many headbows in my world and I
only have one brown one, so I’m sure this will be useful.

The grand prize, displayed in the most subtle way possible.

At the end there were the usual last
minute outfit shots, selfies and general vanity before we all dispersed on our
way back home. I think everyone had a tiring week and just wanted to change
into something comfy, myself included. But for last 2017 Leeds comm meet, this
definitely was great and as always I enjoyed spending time with these
lovely people. I have one more actual, official meet left this year, although
I will be wearing Lolita on my own at least once before, which I’ll try to get a
photo of to document here.

Did you do anything for the ILD
weekend? How long did it take you to get dressed, if you dressed up in your
frills? Any more meets still left for you this year or has your comm winded
down now?

1 Dec 2017

It’s now the month of Christmas and I’m not going to lie, I’m very excited. Christmas is definitely my favourite holiday and always has been. But in a
similar spirit to Lolita fashion and Halloween, not all of us can
justify buying a once-a-year kind of dress with a Christmas print. As much as I
adore some of them, I know that I’d feel weird getting one, unless I found one
for insanely cheap or unless it was a versatile enough print to wear at other times of the year (Marchen Die Prinzessin's The Nutcracker is my ideal here). How could you get that
Christmas fantasy outfit without spending too much? Read on to find out!

28 Nov 2017

When it comes to Christmas markets,
the Manchester one is one of the best and biggest, certainly in “our” area if
not even the country. I missed it last year and didn’t want to skip it again,
so I got my Mum involved, found us cheap train tickets and off we went!

My goal for the day was to look
festive, but still be comfortable, warm and not have to worry about anything
getting ruined (you never know when someone’s had too much glühwein and might
accidentally spill it on you), so I went for the old and trusted Bodyline. I
wanted to wear red shoes, but unfortunately the weather forecast for Manchester
was rains and snow, so I needed to wear something more practical at the expense
of matching. Though I still felt like Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

What’s great about the Manchester
Christmas Markets is that there literally are several scattered across various
locations in the city centre. They sort of form a trail, although if you don’t
have a map and don’t know the area too well you wouldn’t always know where to
go for the next area. Luckily, the maps were available to download for free and
there were a few people here and there offering free information, which made
things a lot easier.

As you’d expect, everything looked
Christmas card festive and there were loads of stalls selling pretty much
everything, from food to decorations and potential gifts. Many sellers had
stalls in several market locations, so if one was too crowded or you had left
before deciding you actually wanted something chances were that you could still
get it without having to go back.

Since we went on Saturday and got
there around 2pm, we hit some of the busiest times going. I’m not a fan of
crowded places, I find crowds incredibly annoying, although I still managed to
enjoy the markets. For anyone wanting to visit, but who really cannot deal with
crowds, the website offers some information on quieter times to visit. Very
useful for individuals and families who, for whatever reason, need to avoid
busy, loud places and times, I thought that was a nice way to be inclusive.

Although my favourite part has to be
the mugs. The Christmas Markets are running a scheme where all stalls selling
drinks have to do so in actual glasses and mugs. These incur an additional
deposit cost of £1 per glass and £2.50 for mugs, but it was far more
environmentally friendly and meant that the markets were mostly free of rubbish
which otherwise would’ve been everywhere. Afterwards you could return your mugs
and get the deposit back or keep them as a souvenir (although I think this
applied only to the mugs, not to the glasses). I absolutely love the idea and
between Mum and I we got both designs: black with a snowman, which was for
alcoholic drinks, and white with Santa Claus for non-alcoholic beverages. They’ll
be great to use during the Christmas season and a seriously nice souvenir for
any lover of hot drinks!

While I kind of want to go again at
a quieter time, to have time to enjoy it without being annoyed at the crowds,
we have visited everything and enjoyed the whole experience thoroughly enough
to not really have the need to. I’m also stocked up on Spekulaas, which I love
with all my heart (and stomach) and will do my best to make them last, so I
genuinely should be doing other things to satisfy my need for festive cheer.
There will be other markets to come and next weekend is the Winter ILD, so this
should be enough. December looks as busy for me and as filled with Lolita as
November has been, so while my introverted self cannot wait for the Christmas
break to have some lazy rest, I am very excited for all that’s still to come.

Are you feeling the Christmas spirit
yet? Have you been getting ready and in the mood? Any plans for ILD next
Saturday? I’d love to hear all about it!

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About me

Cupcake Kamisama – 25-year-old Capricorn, Polish-born, UK-based and in love with Japanese fashion (predominantly Lolita). I enjoy a good bargain, OTT Sweet, cats and baking, and when in Japan I’m a self-confessed purikura addict. When I don’t blog, I work in the education sector, overseeing international exchange programs, write articles for Wunderwelt Libre and sometimes I get to do some exciting freelance translations on the side.

I hope you enjoy my blog and that you stay a little longer. You can also find me on other social media:
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